How Do You Feel About Driver Facing Cameras?

I'm going to be going to CDL school to become a professional truck driver and my first choice of trucking companies to get on with after school has driver facing cameras. To me, that would feel like an invasion of privacy. How should I deal with that? Should I not consider this company and go to a company that doesn't have driver facing cameras? Thank you.

Hi, Chris! Welcome to Trucking Truth!

Your question has been simmering here for over a year. Use the search box in the upper left of this page, for "drive cam" or such. Enjoy your reading! Please bring your thoughts or questions.

BTW, being your first post, have you looked around the web site? Here's our "starter kit":

• Truck Driver's Career Guide
• Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version)
• High Road Training Program

The High Road program is dyn-o-mite for preparing for your written CDL test. Good luck!

I recently sat through a company presentation on the justification of driver facing cams. I went into it feeling very much invaded but by the end I (almost) welcome the thing. To make a long story short, if you are doing everything right that cam can save your ass after an incident. They presented case after case of cam video saving a driver's career and more in court. So, pending first hand experience, I'm sold.

I'm going to be going to CDL school to become a professional truck driver and my first choice of trucking companies to get on with after school has driver facing cameras. To me, that would feel like an invasion of privacy. How should I deal with that? Should I not consider this company and go to a company that doesn't have driver facing cameras? Thank you.

Driver facing cameras are of absolute zero benefit to the driver. I would never work for a company that had them. traffic facing cameras however keep people in check and also record other vehicles driving in a way that could cause a collision but without a camera could be blamed on you. I don't mind them

I've driven a truck with both forward and driver facing cameras. It doesn't bother me one bit, but I also understand how the technology works. Once you go off duty, it's perfectly legal to cover that driver facing camera. No invasion of your personal time. As far as on duty, if you are doing what you are supposed to be doing (and I hope you always are), what's there to worry about? It's no different than working at say, Walmart, where there are security cameras everywhere.

Driver facing cameras are of absolute zero benefit to the driver. I would never work for a company that had them. traffic facing cameras however keep people in check and also record other vehicles driving in a way that could cause a collision but without a camera could be blamed on you. I don't mind them

Really? Please, tell us why "driver facing cameras" are "useless to the driver".

And offer real facts, studies, not just your arbitrary opinion.

Driver-facing cameras are definitely invasions of privacy, however, they seem to becoming more popular. It is my understanding that Stevens Transport has stopped installing driver-facing cameras because they were losing a lot more experienced drivers than normal. I've heard they may begin installing traffic-facing cameras soon, but that's only vague scuttlebutt.

Traffic facing cameras can benefit the driver and the company, driver-facing cameras, in most cases, can only hurt the driver and benefit the company - possibly at the expense of the driver.

If I have a driver-facing camera installed by Stevens, I have tape, and I will use it. Probably won't happen though, since my plan is to leave Stevens in the next couple months, and the camera install program as been stopped, at least temporarily.

Now look at Brian here:

Does this look like a man who might enjoy having a driver facing camera on him? I would say not. And indeed he says not:

I recently sat through a company presentation on the justification of driver facing cams. I went into it feeling very much invaded

After giving someone a reasonable opportunity to explain the benefits of having one:

by the end I (almost) welcome the thing.

I'll tell you the two big reasons you're going to see these cameras more in the future:

1) They can detect if your eyes are staying closed too long and alert you that you may be falling asleep. It's actually a pretty simple technology by today's standards and it works. Rumble strips are simple and save lives. Eye detection cameras will too.

2) It changes the behavior of the driver being observed. No one is going to act exactly the same whether they're on camera or off. Even something as simple and common as picking up something you dropped off the floorboard or reaching over to look at your phone is now going to be scrutinized if there's an accident. So you're simply not going to do it. This goes for dozens or even hundreds of dangerous habits drivers may have.

For those two reasons alone you're going to see more and more cameras. They're going to save lives. There's no denying it. It's simple science.

I don't think that a camera faced towards the drivers seat is an invasion of your privacy it is proof that you do your Job and do it right. Now if you are playing on or with your phone or doing some dumb stuff then you might not want that box facing you why would anyone not want proof they were doing their job?

Wow, Farmerbob. That might be a new record for the most rumor, heresy, and false science I've read in such a short comment. You didn't waste a word. I'm not even going to bother to quote any of it or respond to any of it other than to say it mostly belongs in the trash bin. None of it was fact, none of it can be counted on, and the one thing you did state as being a fact is clearly your opinion, and it's already been debunked a hundred times.

But this thread was almost doomed to the trash bin the moment I read the subject line. I knew we'd get all kinds of baloney.